Chapter 4
Five Aspects Of The Demiurge
It is one of those quiet before battle moments when soldiers will take stock of their lives and often see it wanting. Times for great dreams to be formulated then forgotten as they weld their own lives to others, to systems and things they barely understood, barely hated but loved nonetheless. It is this time for Longinus Aquamelde, the barracks were silent and still. His mind ‘worked’ as it always did. Between the lines Longinus, between the lines. Will you ever remember those times when your sins were always at hand to be fettled and wept over in times of stillness? Something ached inside of him
He moves his hand through his Black hair and he wonders. He looks at his hands scarred by Fire and War, the muscles in his arms Iron made from casting weapons at enemy, castigating the fallen, arms that are guilty of Crimes. In the afternoon light his hands, not innocent hands. Others would look to their Gods for some sense of order and justice but not him.
He strapped on his leather armour, they would be going into the madness of the City, a thing that disgusted him. He strapped a brace upon his throwing arm and for a moment he sees another man sat on the edge of another bed. He held a Gun to his lips and thought about the filed hair trigger, the merest slip of a sweated hand. Even as he gasped to understand the word ‘gun’ he knew it’s purpose and then shaking his head the vision subsided. The sun perhaps, it was hot here, hallucinations, mirages. The vision was strange.
Longinus had the ‘Skull’ job. A companion or Guard to five condemned men. The people of the deserts loved their great processions of the condemned, they loved their great Temple Courts and the berating of the unholy, the thieves, the liars, the Adulterers. Unaware that of course, the greatest of these heretics were the ones in judgement. The Priests of their Temples were a disgusting thing. Coiled asinine embroidered evil. In their Temple the stink of unholiness. There was Human excrement everywhere here, the stink of Humanity, the stink of piss, it made his mouth sour.
The noise of his men was deafening in the small alleys that surrounded the Temple. The temper of his command as loud of course, angry, annoyed and this emotional time displayed itself as his men kicked and punched their way through the throng of people on route to the spectacle their Priests and Shamans had announced that afternoon. Surly looks at the backs of them, the people of this place were sick and violent. Above him the sky roiled and tossed and rays of brilliant light shone through the bars of dust in the sky.
He waited with his men in order in the street of the ‘Seven Eyes’ in the City of Jerusalem. Bidden by Superiors to stand ready to receive the Prisoners and escort them to the place of their execution. It was a dirty street much occupied by Prostitutes, the Faithful and the filth of the City.
It disgusted Longinus and he was wary of it as many Soldiers of Rome had met their end their with a knife or a rope while carousing on rare days off. Now the place was out of bounds to them by order of the Consul. It was ordered some months past now that the patience of Rome in it’s glory would not allow soldiers within their places of Worship. Longinus would have put all Jerusalem to the sword. For was not the will of Rome expressed through it’s power?
This wait would not allow his men good moods. It would irk them to be sure, and Longinus would wryly smile at their madness and cussing for at least a night. This Hell he was in, who did he blame for this? This posting was a curse, he had wronged someone obviously, a whisper that crept into stupid minds and a thirst for revenge maybe. Longinus mentally ticked off the people he had angered, the list was long. The Sun was low anyhow, the heat of the day would be gone and darkness he hoped would hide him and his men away from guilt but more importantly the Sun although Winter distant still hot. His head wavered and nodded for a moment and he could feel sand between his fingers and a heavy cloak upon him…
The Abyss yawns in front of me like a sun dazed Dog, like a stretched Cunt. I see the things this Soul sees, I see and feel the dust, the shallow heat and the disgust he feels. This hallucination breathes in me, it feeds me delights, smells, all the senses. I feel like casting myself into the bottomless pit as is my want and as is my right. As Adam the first man knew the pain of Chaos and Love and that sin to him and others was the need to finish the fantasy with his own death. We have stolen you. We have you as Toys for amusement. We Farm you. Our hands scratch the story of their lives in the sand. I manipulate myself in the past from here in my future. All time is meaningless, is a non existent thing.
…a moment when words fluttered around his head and cut through the noise, the sounds. It was clear these words were…but no matter. The moment gone, the words in his mind forgotten. An inhabitant of that place falls into him and he shoves them away hard. They fall into the crowd injured, it was a woman. For a second he felt ashamed and then not. Her breasts had fallen free from her robe, the hands that helped did nothing but grope and she cared not.
There was much noise and coming and going of people who continued to jostle and push to seek a clearer place to view or to surround one who spoke at length about the scenes inside the temple. There were many of these people and it made travel hard. Longinus put out a foot and sent an unfortunate soul flying into the crap piled in the middle of the street. Such filth, such disgust.
Still, the air above hung like a wet sheet, that Sun made from White hot Bronze getting lower as the afternoon passed. His Leather armour chafed but he didn’t feel it physically. Too experienced, too sure of his vocation. The slickness of his sweat a lubricant that allowed him to shift position for Battle easily. His Men stood beside a Great Golden door, in it marked the legends and the stories of these people. The crowd spilled out into the Street, swearing, groping, alive with their sins and sure to add to them as the mass made anonymity sure.
Presently from the Temple a rising of voices and the door was flung open, it disgorged a mass of people all vying for position and place. Grabbing and clawing, smashing and treading to move away form the multitude and gain a better position. Longinus used the flat of his sword to beat a way to the heavy doors and clear a space, his men did the same, entering into the fray with much gladness as it was supposed to be their Leave night, gambling and drenching themselves in Wine and Whores. Blood fell in great drops. These men were not gentle.
‘Move you fuckers’ one of his men, Sarfus his voice high pitched and comical, but he was a man of great strength that belied his womanly voice. Branus from Carthage laughing as he broke heads with the butt of his Sword. Eventually a space was made and Gordianus The Principalis blew out of the Temple like a cork from a bottle, his Red face even redder than it normally was.
‘Fuck this shit and mess! Said Longinus under his breath, then to Branus louder, ‘they will come out violent and it is a plot made in dark places for these men, there is anger here and something else, I want this performed quickly’. He ordered the Men to clear a space in front of the doors and ran into the Temple bringing out the condemned men who were ragged and showed signs of beating. Their eyes showed a fear but he felt something strange, Witchcraft perhaps. Longinus knew the stately wisdom of Rome, had he not seen it these long years?. The foot and fist of Empire to be sure, but Longinus was from dark valleys, and high peaks, he knew Witchery, he knew Shamana. The Prisoners were a state and a mess.
‘Why have they been beaten?’ Longinus asked the Principalis, but he spoke to his back as he was gone back to the Temple for what purposes Longinus knew not. From the inside the procession of sorry souls for execution came forwards and Longinus saw that four of them were relatively untouched and one showed evidence of scourging and a beating that left the criminal barely able to move. As was the wont of these people several of the crowd leaned forwards to beat the Men and pull their hair until they stumbled whereupon a section of the crowd would lurch forwards and surround them kicking the unfortunates about the head and body. The Scourged man received no such treatment but was viewed with suspicion and possibly some odour of respect. Obviously a Religious crime, some Prophet the same as choked these streets in these unsure times.
Longinus held a hand out to steady this man, this Prophet perhaps and then withdrew it, for a reason he never understood. Was he worthy of touching a Magi as this? Would it suffer him to touch one that had obviously known the Eigen? So close he remembered. The heat through his sandals burned him as he shook for a moment. Lost he was this Man and yet…
This man, this Magi….treated so? How and why? My intelligence reeled at it and I spun mentally the tangled webs of the world and its peoples as the Magic rolled from where ever it came. The scene played out as a memory a set of illusions as a Movie or a Comic strip but underneath those feelings it bit like a wicked animal at me, some feedback perhaps some blurred line that made my back scream in pain and at the Abyss, poor Longinus. Eternal Fool, he will destroy himself of course..when he knows who he is, who I am…
‘Order up, protect and use the flat of your swords only!’ Longinus shouted to his men who swiftly surrounded the condemned and beat back the crowd harshly. Longinus although not proud of such violence was content his men knew their places and order. Soon they were on their way among the close and narrow streets to the Skull place outside the City Gates. There were to be no executions within the City by order and custom of the Temple and at these times the Roman government were quick to acquiesce and placate the Priests. The route out of the City was uneventful apart from the scourged man dropping to his knees at times while the people of the City either darted forwards to help him or inflict some violence. As it was Longinus in charge of the procession all were dealt with by a swift blow of a sword on its flat side or smashed over the head with a Spear or shield. The voice within his mind spoke again, it was his own voice his own thoughts of this he was sure but.
I stood on the Hill in days after, not a physical presence but one so impressed on the Eigengrau that it affected as an eye startled by lightening, an after image. The Eigengrau thus twisted from its shape set an eddy. Affected the current. Repercussions then slicing through time they lose another Wayfarer. Who sends these Prophets? They think the Nine a dream, would fear to destroy the very thing they themselves have made. We feed upon your fantasy in the Playground we have made for you.
Longinus knew something was wrong, Witchery, discarnate voices within his mind, the smell of the place usually drenched in the acid stench of shit was absent. A fresher air seemed to blow. He knew this wind, the clean wind blew from a Holy place and he knew it from when he was a Child sat on his Grandfathers knee. The tales he told of it. It made him suspicious again, he stopped to wipe some sweat from underneath his helmet. Now in front of the Procession they tailed behind him. The narrow streets were now a help. Moving, the crowd lapsed behind and followed them and the few souls in front walked warily for a swift smash over the head for tarrying too close to the head of the Procession was their reward. The Crowd was women and men of the City, some old people grey beards and such, a scattering of Temple acolytes in gold finery, children, barking stray dogs.
Longinus eased himself into character with the same shrug of the shoulders and the glance towards the heavens he always performed. His burden that of Man in all his guises but something was different. The day was edged with some silver spiritual thread. It seemed a little too glaring, maybe a little too loud. His senses were attuned in the way it always did before battle when enclosed by the phalanx he would take a while to think and give himself a little peace. He had never heard voices before, of that he was certain.
The Scourged man was now at the front of the line of condemned and again stumbled and his scourging was plastered with the filth of the street. He was young this man and seemed fit and able apart from the beating. He was clad in only a small breech clout his clothes must have been ripped from him. The other condemned were dressed. Longinus thought this an aberration and he being one who would wince at such things took his cloak from his back and threw it over the mans wounds. The man was grateful and offered Longinus a nod and Longinus bid him to keep a better pace. Why? He asked himself? A few of the men looked at Longinus as if he had lost his mind. The confusion in his own mind threw him, anger, easily the most accessible emotion in times of fear and uncertainty. He shouted at them, ordered them, hid his own confusion in the outpouring of anger.
She moved between the people and they moved for her, in her wake old women sobbed and men drew uneasily away for the promise she gave was none but Chaos. She knew this Criminal scourged, knew his position and his end but still as a Witness, she must see for herself what strange machinations it would bring. The rarity of her Blonde hair in this place put her as a Romans pretty wife or Mistress yet she was simply clothed her Blue eyes angry and yet not defeated, not yet.
Longinus held onto the arm of one of his Soldiers for a moment, the Sun hazy and as milk, the voice again rose within his mind like a tide, “Of her whoever knew. Her white robe stained red with his blood her hands held to the dark skies above. Oh what grief that tore my heart from the meat which protects it. That I Longinus would fall to my knees and weep those pure tears. The Sun in that afternoon was aglow and fired. Bless its beauty. We sit in the Desert in our Circle and we make the shivered talk and the crippled to walk. We metabolise the hate and the love, we feel to give back little for our greed is timeless.” His words, lost now on a Soldiers ears.
Soon the Hill of Skulls could be seen through the City gate, it shone with a strange light, the setting of the Sun was a few hours away and still but the light reflected form some low cloud and from the city wall itself, it seemed made of Gold and around its feet forty of fifty people awaited the convoy. As they left the City another group of Soldiers beat the crowds back and they started to climb the hill.
Hill of Skulls was a name bereft of originality and skill, under foot was the discarded bones of the dead, some executed and left, some half buried hasty graves, some animal bones. It was a forlorn place. Above them the sky was threatening rain and the Sun bursting through gaps in the cloud made it a fantastic sight for any other day but this. This thing, this execution bothered Longinus, he was a Soldier not an executioner, it left a sour acid taste in his mouth. At the top of the hill Labourers from the City had dug great post holes in the ground, five of them and now sat huddled together under a strip of old Tent cloth, Longinus could only see their eyes, which burned from the darkness underneath the cloth, their tools lay scattered by them. The crowd now in the open was a lot quieter more able to be seen by a soldier and be chased into the ground for a good beating. Now even the Temple workers had brought clubs and such like and were setting about the crowd with something that seemed like enjoyment. Thus do Men make their own Pantomimes as they experience what they really are.
Here we plot. I watch her through the heat of the desert as she watches this Pantomime. Do I know her? I know all of them. My Brothers ‘lack’ something. Love for them is a mere rind of a blessed fruit, a thing they sense but have no knowledge of. Their carnal thoughts flood mine for a moment and I resist, they stop, they watch me for a moment through the heat. They suspect and then her presence soothes them, they plot again.
She bore no ill will to them, how could she? The Eigengrau was etched on her heart. She sensed him inside her as she sat in the Meadows and listened to the songs the Angels sang to awaken God and bring back his children. They make their own world and that world as twisted as the lottery win. We care little but suspect this woman to be a Deity sent to torment us with this disorder, this chaotic end we suffer. We lift our hands to her and beg for peace to leave us alone, but no. We sit and make their lives and she will interfere with mindless haste and blessed madness. We will plot something for her as we weave.
A Crucifixion? Longinus caught a stray thought in the midst of his shouted orders. A Crucifixion, that meant a night on the Hill for his men, that explained their bad temper. Nobody had told Longinus, busy in ordering the men into positions. The Principalis came stumbling up the path to the Crown of the Hill his face redder, his countenance fouler. He knew Longinus had questions and he deemed to answer them before Longinus asked.
‘It is the Order that all condemned be crucified although only one is Political’ he pointed to the scourged man. ‘He is the Political and the other four are various Criminals, don’t ask me why just get it done and I will treat you all to wine back at Barracks’, he strode off to supervise the positioning of the Yew planks rough and fresh full of Resin still, unseasoned. The condemned now sat in a circle, a huddle of depression apart from the scourged political who head bowed feeble pulled the cloak around him not in modesty but the wind was now much cooler. He was mumbling to himself and closer now Longinus saw that the scourge had ripped great strips of flesh from him and underneath some parts the bone of his ribs and back could be seen.
A death another thankless existence to be picked over by dogs. He watched as one of the Robbers died, he cast his breath to the wind and the wind took it, held it, and carried it away. From the crowd the Sigil spat its mark upon the Eigengrau and thus made its mark upon the tumbling Time that didn’t itch but it remembered. Underneath the criminals ragged garments blood soaked , he had been quietly stabbed on his travail through the streets and had quietly bled to death. Somebody bore him some ill feeling. Longinus knew all about that of course but he bid the Carpenter to tie him to his Yew beam anyway. Let the Empires will be done, never questioned. The poor Cunt had to be crucified by order of Rome and who was he to question it?
What fears do they have today? I protest too much I fear and will not let the Prophet die in the manner we have chosen, and yet…I twist the Eigen with my system, I let the other Brothers amplify and assimilate the choice into the Eigen and it casts a Black shadow over us and the Sands from the Dunes surround us and they tremble.
One of his men shouted to him, ‘ A scourged half to death political and four criminals one of them dead before sentence was carried out and who should rightly be hung and yet we have to stand all night watching them?’ Sarfus said in his strange accent. He was a man quick to anger and love, Longinus suspected he was soured and scared by the sight of the scourged man. Longinus nodded still watching the Political. One of the Temple Workers ran forwards breaking the cordon at its edge and rammed violently a woven ring of Thorns on the scourged mans head. Longinus flicked out his Spear and tripped the man and gave him the but of the Spear to the base of his skull rendering him unconscious. His friends dragged him away and Longinus noticed the blood of the Scourged man erupt anew from various head wounds and spill down his face staining his beard.
Longinus, sweet Longinus, how sweet they called your name and you ran down the meadow to your Mother and Father after pulling the thick hay from the basket to sleep upon while you watched the clouds above fly across the sky. I remember. The way the cool wind blew from the Mountain and the Gods above rattle their gilded chains. We have thoughts that are shared, and you are our Brother, may we not finger your precious dreams?
Urpan the Carpenter a small Indian man who took the coin of Rome for various duties gently tugged at Longinus for attention. “What Urpan? What troubles you?” Longinus said. He was fond of Urpan and encouraged his attachment to his barracks as he was skilled with wood and could repair weapons and make simple furniture for the mens rooms. The men liked him also and would give him coins and gifts and Longinus knew not what he did with the money. Urpan had made the instruments of crucifixion. He looked at Longinus ‘ Roman, I cannot drive these nails into a man no, it is my courage I lack and yet I can not find any to do this, chairs I make but not death’. Longinus cast an eye over the crowd and walked around the activity around the post holes as Legionnaires started to pull the criminals to their feet ready for crucifixion. Hemp rope, old and stained was being used to tie them and they protested their innocence apart from the dead man whose eyes didn’t roll when the rope was drawn tight.
‘Begone Urpan back to barracks and lock your doors,there is evil here and darkness’ Longinus said to him, and Urpan ran away as fast as he could towards the city gates. At the four points of the Compass a rolling storm, strangely it seemed to be aiming straight for the Hill and would enclose it. As a fist around a small fruit, squeezing.
Patterned explanations for that time would not give Longinus peace. This Simple soldier his shattered mind used as a ball for simple sports.
Bless him. She wished to see this great love in herself that had manifested…she dreamed of a man asleep but aware and he took her in the grass. In the meadow, amongst the flowers and the beautiful things that were in it. Asleep still he took her and showed her stars and things that she could not comprehend. Inside her his Son, who would know not the subtle pains of the Eigengrau and live and breathe the airs of that place. What Heaven it is to walk and sense the glorious land he would live within? , and eventually die of course as was the want of those who had not tasted the Eigengrau and its bitterness. Her crime to bring him here was no crime at all but the subtle mind to send him for him to teach in his knowledge those that had become tangled in the Eigengrau. Can we not love too?
Why a Crucifixion? Usually the men were tied to the posts and took a day to die at least, these were the worst Criminals. Robbers were always hung from the Olive trees that dotted the sides of the road or simply had their throats cut. Now Urpan talks of ‘nailing’ and Longinus knew that only the wickedest were nailed and crucified. The Thieves were almost all up, one left two up and protesting, howling at the pain they felt when upright. While the dead one nodded limply in the wind. Later Longinus would send the Gaul to put them to the sword so that they may just simply die instead of giving his men a headache as they wailed through the long night ahead.
Entangled we are, as we are. Was not this man sent by a Goddess? To give love and wisdom to the Peoples of the Eigengrau? Here he could learn the pains and the torn hearted existence we lead, here he could love and hate, breathe the fires of knowledge. Return and thus point the way…
The last of the Criminals was roped to the Yew Cross and a mix of Soldiers and labourers lifted the heavy cross over the post hole and manoeuvred it into position. The man moaned as he took his own weight and beseeched his God in a weak puerile tone. He was diseased, his flesh looked grey and Longinus stood back. Leprosy. Already the skin smelled of damp woodland, the rot of his flesh.
‘The Political goes on the highest cross and that is the request of their leaders’ The Principalis said to the grunting and sweating workers and soldiers. By now there were three criminals moaning atop their crosses of death, one silent dead criminal mouth open gaped in his rest, the fifth post hole was the highest and now the Political was dragged to it and Sarfus the Gaul stood with a Mallet and a bundle of thick sharpened wooden pegs. Longinus with an eye on the crowd noticed a silence all of a sudden as they waited for the Scourged man to be crucified. Here they sat and stood, even the ones whose foul voices seconds ago had split the air with course shouts were silent, still hating, but waiting. Aronus and Carfa two of his men went to the scourged man and gently lifted him to his feet and took him to the Cross.
At each arm of the Cross and at a third distance from the bottom had been drilled a hole. This hole was to be the ‘Pilot’ for the wooden peg carved to a sharp point. The men stripped the cloak from the bloodstained man and lay him gently on the rough planks. Softly they spread his arm to the crosspiece and bid Sarfus to make the blow. Longinus noticed that dark bruises spread all over the scourged flesh of the man, it was obvious he had been beaten for days before. Sarfus eyed the mans arm sallow but muscled, he was a Man of labour. Sarfus aimed through the flesh for the hole underneath and with one or two blows smashed the peg through the scourged mans wrist and into the pilot hole. One more tap and the peg was secured and rounded off at the mallet end as to stop the body and arm from sliding off the peg. The scourged man moaned and his eyes drifted into a whiteness as he went unconscious for a moment. A second later the second peg had been driven in and the man moaned some words in his language.
Did you learn pained upon the cross of Yew? Did you not see the lands of your Father and cry to him. Did you not see him wake and cradle you to his breast? Your hand pointed the way, to his Brothers gathered at his feet he said ‘You see this?’ We are but Directors of a Great and Awful show…
At his feet Sarfus bound a rough rope more to stop the twitching and movement. He had to drive the largest peg through the Achilles heel at an angle to get both feet in one peg. Longinus had only seen this once before. It had been a Greek that had offended some minor politician and it was a direct order for him to die in the most painful and longest manner possible. ‘What were this mans crimes?’ thought Longinus. ‘Why such a thing?’ Sarfus made no mistake and the peg drove through the flesh like a hot iron straight into the pilot hole. The scourged man hardly moved, a kin to pain, a brother to it, it was slowly becoming a normal part of his world. Shortly he was lifted into position and as the men made haste with the crowd at a lower point on the hill Longinus inspected the work and the stationing of his men.
Several rocks were thrown at the soldiers who gleefully glad to be away from the crucified waded into the now thinning crowd raining blows and dropping the flats of their swords breaking open heads and flesh to disguise their disgust and horror. These men of war whom Longinus had fought with for many years disgusted with death? He knew them as Soldiers not executioners. The words describe the same acts but with a Soldiers train of thought. To kill unarmed men was a cowards way.
The scourged man now naked on the cross apart from his Twisted Crown. Longinus had forgotten to take it off. Time it seemed had stopped for a moment and Longinus had a moment to stop and lean upon his spear. The workmen and a few Soldiers had left the hill and were picking their way down the rocky paths back to the City. Most of the crowd followed and left behind were perhaps the scourged mans family and friends quietly crying and sobbing outside the circle of his men in case they approached and took him down. What sadness this was, Longinus was tired and felt a lethargy upon him, a loss.
Aronus approached and gave Longinus a skin of wine which he drank in one thirsty gulp to rid his throat of the dust and distaste. Longinus bid Aronus to build a fire to keep the men warm in the night and himself he walked to the foot of the Crucifix to lay eyes a little better on this Scourged and sorrowful man.
Now he was crucified and nearly at rest. What his Gods meant for him Longinus knew not, he didn’t know their God. A mystery that he was affected by him, those eyes burned into him as blood dripped onto the ground and the cloak that had been thrown there. What things went on inside a mans head when he was pinned with pegs to this place of his death, and were we not pinned also to our places of death also?
The sky rattles now with thunder and there would be a rare rain, Longinus felt this. The days on the Farm when he was a child, his Grandfather would run with him through the rain laughing and they would open the gates of the Irrigation channels and fill their cisterns. How his Grandfather would laugh and the raindrops fell from his bushy eyebrows. Then running, sliding, home, covered in mud but happy. Would this man remember such things under his glistening crimes and agonies? Longinus hoped he would for this was no thief as the others but a protagonist a deceiver of people perhaps. Longinus knew no Gods, no religious faith. Battle had carved away the beliefs his family had shared, of their Gods in hallowed places, offerings and prayers. He had seen and heard enough praying, to know the Gods stayed silent and slept.
Do you not see the tangled mess we wallow within?
So he felt nothing for spirits only outflanking, ambush and the roles of War the simple defining battles and deaths. The Thunder rolled and a wind blew chilled from the North and Longinus drew about him his cloak. Above him he fancied, in the sky he saw two Moons steadily growing bigger. A trick of the Sun surely and with no thought looked again at the scourged man.
We wander dark paths we make subtle pangs bred by fear. Only that, and opposite only Love that is all, a choice. His hand pointed the way and his Father bid him cast his eyes away for he knew that the people in the Eigengrau although his children, were to learn.
The blood filled eyes of him bound looked to the Heavens as if to ask of them something, there was anger, a flash of it that rolled across his face. Then fear a terror he did not understand for he looked quizzically at the sky, then below and around him. The Criminal at his side said something and the scourged man smiled and said some words that were whipped away by the wind before Longinus could catch them. The criminal smiled also and Longinus suspected for a moment a plan of escape. They could not escape, never Longinus knew.
For was not the World a Prison that one was kept in for eternity. Was not this World a mere reflection of existence, its petty wars and escapades a mere Play or Comedy? Longinus knew these things then although he had long suspected them. Now outside of Jerusalem it became clear. Trapped we are like flies in Amber, bars we have that stop us from being who we really are, who we were meant to be. He saw the fabric of the World was not the fertile earth’s and life upon it but cold hard Iron but painted as Hindu Chariots and Greek relief. Painted a profusion of beautiful colour meant to deceive as a Fly trap plant or a conjurers trick. But still a Prison.
Longinus was confused now, from the North the clouds boiled and rolled with flashes of lightning that ripped across the Hill illuminating eerily the faces of those soon to be dead as even the Sun still spilled its golden sunset into their eyes.
What is the point, this Magic burns a hole. To tap words upon a wand, to wander blind paths. We find a sick point to seize and manipulate, and write a collection of lies we weave and believe. From the Abyss a secret word, a delicate pose. A special fire to kindle and tend. Coated in a shellac of innocence to burn off, as we we chip and file the barren wastes of our minds. On the Hill forsaken a single voice uttered into the wind caught and flung away. Annihilated souls sicken loves to cheer and bray.
Longinus saw in this mans eyes a thing of sparkled fine hearts and songs never begun, the tendril of smoke from a fire forgotten to tender the nights we let the breeze blow through the windows. As we laughed within our own sordid world,a whisper again, there on the wind,a single word.
‘Father’
We tend the hearts as said by the Masters long dead. The Sisters and the Mothers sobbed, the Daughters cried aloud. They instil a sense of Earthly dread. Longinus felt nailed to the rock of that Hill. Begone, scatter the ashes and tread them in. What purpose no one knows and lack to care as we annihilate our own bloods and flesh. Soft hands on steel and mesh, or bars to cling, we open our mouths, we begin to sing songs of forgiveness. Fouler deeds done on bended knee, as we pray and shuffle useless words and speak to turned heads. Nobody listens to a word you said.
This sacrifice they give to us I suppose. Above Longinus the air boiled venom and grief. The air did glow indeed, the Blue light of Abaddoth. The Crucified man wept aloud now and each spasm of pain a flashed alarm in the sky. The Angles change in essence to order the World, it turns and bathes in the harsh moon and the pained man upon the cross. Messenger he was, Eigen Given. The Mind clears out the brazen trash it holds throughout his life as Longinus felt it fill him as a vessel of some kind, a life of Everlast. At his feet eddies form within the ash.
I look down at my hands and see the Eigen has split the skin at the wrists and the blood flows freely into the African sands. I draw Sigils in the sands with mine own blood and pull my hood further down over my face so the Brothers will not stop their own manipulations. Sire the greedy words and adjust their meaning, I pull the magic from the Eigen and plough back through times that have passed. My sin a greater thing than this man’s but….I see others, and they call to me…
Songs from the Black Iron Prison 
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